


island mode

by nauticalwarrior



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: (kind of), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Injury, Island Mode (Dangan Ronpa), Memories, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 22:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14924153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nauticalwarrior/pseuds/nauticalwarrior
Summary: If Island mode took place immediately following the events of the game. Spoilers for the entire game.





	island mode

**Author's Note:**

> this is completed unedited and unbeta'd but i wanted to post it so yeah

The air around his face is sticky and wet, salt scented and heavy on his painfully hot skin.

Hajime blinks his eyes open, staring up at the blurry face that's hovering just above him. The only reason he registers the pale cloud of hair as hair and not an actual cloud is because of the blissful shadow that the boy casts over Hajime's surely sunburned face.

The boy asks Hajime if he can hear him, and he extends a open hand. Hajime takes it and sits up, too tired and too out of sorts to truly question it.

\--

What Usami tells him doesn't sound like reality, even after she defeats the stuffed bear (Monokuma, Right?) and Hajime spends that evening sitting on the cool, clean surface of his sheets, shower water dripping down from his hair and falling in fat drops down his bare shoulders. He should put on a shirt and get something to eat, really, but the angle that he'd been resting on the beach let the sun scorch his entire front save for his chest and legs. His shoulders are too raw for him to try to struggle into a shirt, and he doesn't really want to wander about the island shirtless, so he doesn't wander at all. He sits on his bed, stares at the floor, and contemplates what led him to this point. It can't all be the product of fate, and Hajime honestly can't help but suspect he must have pissed off some very petty god. He should probably lie down, try to get some rest.

A soft knock at his door doesn't startle him, but it does wake him up a bit. He looks up at the polished wood of the door and clears his throat.

"Yeah?" Thankfully, a few bottles of cold water on the beach had softened the scratch in his throat, and he doesn't sound as dead as he feels.

"Hinata-kun, it's time for dinner." The voice is female, probably not Mioda or Saionji judging by the pitch and volume. Hinata would hedge his bets on Koizumi or Nanami, if someone were to ask him.

He swallows, and replies. "I'm a bit tired, so I think I'm just going to go to sleep."

The person on the other side of the door pauses. "...Alright. But you're getting breakfast tomorrow." She (he's pretty sure it's Koizumi) marches off, footsteps fading on the walkway.

Hajime stand up, brushes his shorts off even though they're clean and sand-free. For some reason, it strikes him as odd that it's hot here in the first place, but he blinks and he can't remember why that would be weird at all. It is a tropical island, isn't it?

\--

Hajime eats his breakfast with a bit too much enthusiasm, the scabs on his sun-chapped lips protesting at the action. He probably should have asked someone to take him some food last night (he's starving!!) but he doesn't know any of them all that well. If Usami isn't bluffing, he's going to have to fix that sooner rather than later. He's been here for a grand total of one day, and he's already sick of it.

As if reading his mind, Souda turns away from the breakfast buffet and starts walking towards him. He slides into the chair across Hajime and sighs, a lazy grin on his face.

"Good morning!" He slurps coffee from a pink and white mug, enthusiastically enough that Hajime seriously doubts it's his first cup. "It's pretty nice out today, isn't it?"

Hajime swallows the bacon in his mouth so that he can talk without sounding like an idiot. "Yeah, pretty hot though." Maybe he's just not the island type. His sunburned arms and face definitely are not island friendly.

Souda chuckles. "Yeah, you've got that right. I was thinking about trying to explore some anyways. You game?"

Hajime stares at him for a second longer than he reasonably should for that question. "Uh, yeah. Sure. I'll probably need to get sunblock first."

Souda nods, a grin stretched across his face. "No problem, we'll swing past the market first! I think that we had to have missed at least one thing there anyway, so I was going to suggest going through the shelves at some point." He glances off at the window that's behind Hajime, like he could see the market through the jungle at the island's center. "Maybe they've got the right kind of stuff we could turn into a boat!"

Hajime feels a smile pulling at the edge of his face. "Yeah, maybe. I'd like to go home."

"Me too, buddy." Souda laughs, then takes a gulp of his coffee. "Although, I don't think making friends with you would really be all that bad."

\--

Hajime dips his toes into the pool, staring at the way the greenish glow climbs up his calves. The pool is the brightested thing this time of night, brighter than the stars above or the almost-full moon. Hajime doesn't want to swim (he's exhausted), but the soft sounds of the water lapping up against the tile walls is soothing. He knows he wouldn't be able to sleep even if he tried.

He has the distinct feeling of being watched long before he hears the soft sound of sock-feet footsteps, tracing the wooden platform from the cabins to the pool. Hajime doesn't look up, not until the person settles down quietly beside him, a soft sigh at Hajime's side.

"How are you?" Komaeda's voice is light and casual, even though Hajime knows he passed out in the forest yesterday, and had been resting in his room all day. Hajime forces himself to look at him. Komaeda looks the same as always, translucent skin dyed even paler in the green-blue pool light.

"I'm alright. Shouldn't you be resting?" Hajime turns back to the pool, stares at his grey-brown reflection and Komaeda's white-blue one, stained by the bright blue t-shit he's wearing.

Komaeda sighs. "Probably. It's too nice of a night to sleep any more, not after sleeping all day. How's building coming along?"

Hajime shrugs. "It's... happening. I don't think we can meet the deadline, though. I'd honestly rather we just were left to our own devices. We'd be off this rock sooner if we just hung out all day."

Komaeda hums, low and quiet. "Do you talk to the others a lot?"

"No," Hajime sighs. "I should, probably."

Komaeda nods, just visible in Hajime's peripheral view. "You should. It seems strange, for some reason. That you aren't taking charge, I mean."

Hajime shrugs, looking further away from Komaeda than he really has to. The brick wall of the restaurant is fascinating. "Sonia-san is doing well enough. I don't think I have that much to offer."

"Hinata-kun," Komaeda starts, his voice cautious. "What was your talent, anyway? At Hope's Peak."

Hajime stands up. "I'm going to bed. Don't follow me."

\--

It's only the second week, and Hajime feels like he's breaking. Something is wrong, his mind keeps telling him. He wakes each morning with the same sentence on his lips-

This isn't how it happened

-but he's not sure why he thinks that in the first place, so he obviously does nothing to address it. What would the point be? He's doing just fine like this, even if it's not "right."

This morning, he's out in the jungle (again, because this time Saionji collapsed and he's the only one strong enough to climb the trees and get the materials Sonia asked them to get) with a heavy rope in his arms. He's supposed to be getting flowers from the tops of smooth-barked, heavy leaved trees, but when he starts to climb the first one, carrying the rope with him so he can use it to get down more easily, a slick slab of bark peeling off from the trunk digs into his palm. He pulls away, stumbling the two feet he'd gotten into the air, and watches crimson blood well up from a slice across his skin. His head throbs, and before he knows it, he's collapsed onto the forest floor.

The layer of dead leaves and fallen sticks beneath him is damp and warm, but the only thing he can think about is that his blood should be pink, of all things, and that he never died so this doesn't make any sense. He's not so out of it that he doesn't recognize himself hyperventilating, and when he rests his head on his knees, he watches blood drip onto the ground. He thinks he knows, thinks he's always known. A second chance, huh?

Hajime doesn't stand up, not until Mioda comes looking for him that evening, vibrant from her day at the castle. She's loud and happy until she finds him, trickling blood slowly onto molding leaves, breathing hot and heavy into his knees. She races over, hands shaky, and he remembers her sweating and delirious, her hung from a concert hall. Mioda, hanging from the concert hall at the island. When she asks him something in a concerned voice, he stands up on his own, swaying like a sapling in a storm. He leans against her without a second thought, lets her lead him back to the hotel.

\--

The next few days, Sonia doesn't let him go out. She and Tanaka (dead) came up with a plan to better divide the work, so that nobody gets sick, and they seem to be blaming his breakdown on overwork and nothing else. Komaeda (dead) and Nidai (dead) don't see to buy it.

They show it in different ways, of course. Komaeda checks up on him a couple of times, talks to him quietly and makes him laugh. He leaves after a little bit, every time, and Hajime remembers a Komaeda from another lifetime telling him about his luck. Hajime won't press for him to stay.

Nidai shows up, too. He brings Hajime food and offers him a massage that Hajime reluctantly agrees to, only after the fourth time he's asked. Nidai tells him a story that Hajime hadn't tried to listen to the first time he knew him, hadn't bothered to ask before Nidai was crushed on the floor, blue blood and metal bones. Hajime hangs on every word.

\--

When he's finally allowed to go back to work, the first break Hajime gets is spent at Souda's side, talking. He's the easiest to approach of all of them, and Hajime soon finds himself a friend. Souda grins and laughs at every dumb joke he makes, and they start to eat dinner together. Souda gets him to come along to talk to Sonia, and Tanaka is always right there, so before Hajime has time to process it, he has three friends instead of just one.

He seeks out Komaeda, too, even though he got a chance to know him and Nanami the first time around. He spends time at the beach, at the restaurant, in the jungle with him, and he learns Komaeda's story for the second time. He thinks that he learned some new stuff, too.

Nanami is easier. He can vaguely recall what happened "after" (it's not really after, if he's still here) the game, and he knows that this Nanami isn't the same as he is, so there's no pretense where she pretends not to remember him. She sits with him and they talk about the game, about what happened before it. About what might happen after this, whatever this is. She thinks that they'll all do fine. Hajime is inclined to agree.

He makes friends with all of them, in the end, and as day 50 draws closer, it feels like he could do this again. He doesn't want this to end, doesn't want the version of the simulation that involves no death and no execution to come to a close. On the last day, he pulls Usami aside.

"So, after this is over, are we just going to go to the future foundation?" He doesn't try to whisper, and Usami freaks out, glancing around wildly.

"What?! Y-you're not supposed to know about that!" She frowns, grabbing for her wand, but Hajime puts out a hand to stop her.

"It's the last day, it doesn't matter, right?" He sighs. "I don't really want this to end."

Usami drops her wand hand. "Well, you haven't finished getting all of the wuv yet!"

Hajime tilts his head, frowning. "I have all the friendship fragments, though."

Usami smiles. "You're not done here, not yet, Hinata-kun."

Hajime smiles back at her, looking away from her and towards his friends partying on the beach. "Good. I think I need all the time I can get."


End file.
